None But the Lonely Heart

Staff Cafe Turkey Dinner

I worked the night before Thanksgiving after it had rained and the colors were prominent and breathtaking.  I closed my department alone and felt a romantic type of loneliness.  Think Sinatra's, No One Cares album playing in the background throughout the day.  The managers usually serve up Thanksgiving dinner at the store in an attempt to show gratitude for our efforts, to acknowledge the underlings they ignore regularly, even greeting us by our names, while trying not to obviously read our name tags.  This year, though, there were not enough of them to run the store properly, so we served ourselves.  Other years we'd be beckoned to the back as if mom were calling us to the dinner table.  There were no such announcements and at times the bins were empty at the trough, like in my case by 5:30pm, no potatoes, only gravy.  I slowly grabbed a plate and approached the line as if attending a wake.  I served up baked ham and turkey, lingonberry jam, sweet potatoes, and green beans. A tasty plate of goodness that was appreciated as I would not be making any such dinner for myself.  And also a slightly sad but appropriate representation of our fading traditions and values.  Retail is dying a slow sad death.